Like the ZenBook Edition 30, the X299 Edition 30 boasts an all-white colour scheme with a smattering of gold accents, plus the specially designed symbol plastered on one of the cooler shrouds. Even the M.2 heat spreaders on the motherboard are made of meticulously polished, machine-cut aluminum; further contributing to the theme of elegance that ASUS intended for it. Even the motherboard’s built-in LiveDash OLED panel is special, as it displays the 30th anniversary logo, along with the name of the motherboard. Of course, you can still set it display other motherboard statistics, such as the average fan speed or CPU temperature.
Beyond the aesthetics, the X299 Edition 30 is like any other LGA 2066 motherboard. Designed to accommodate Intel’s enthusiast-level Core X series processors. That means support for CPUs with up to 18-cores, 44 PCIe lanes, and a TDP of 165W. The motherboard also features 16 power stages that ASUS says is capable of sustaining a power draw as high as 544W. Specs-wise, the X299 Edition 30 features eight memory slots, which support up to 128GB DDR4 RAM with overclock (OC) speeds as high as 4266MHz. The motherboard also comes with three PCIe 3.0 slots that also provide multi GPU support. Either for NVIDIA’s SLI or AMD’s mGPU setup.
Additionally, the X299 Edition 30 comes with eight SATA 6GB/s ports built into it, and three M.2 2242-22110 NVMe PCIe x4 slots, with one of the slots having a vertical alignment. For I/O ports, the motherboard features dual LAN ports, one being an Intel I219-V port, and the other being an Aquantia AQC-111C that supports 5G LAN. Still on the subject of internet connectivity, ASUS has also bumped up the Wi-Fi support for the X299 Edition 30 by providing it with an Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2×2 MU-MIMO antenna. Oh, and support for Bluetooth 5.0.
Other I/O ports include four USB 3.1 Gen1, two USB-C with Thunderbolt 3, two DisplayPort outputs, and a ubiquitous six audio ports with Realtek support. Moreover, the X299 Edition 30 also features support for software-driven features such as Windows Hello.
Like almost all the products announced here, there’s still no local availability or pricing for the Prime X299 Edition 30. Also, given that it’s a motherboard made for a special occasion, it’s likely that this particular motherboard will be available in limited quantities.
